Designed for flexibility. Amped with electrifying speed. Launch your Java EE applications in a flash!

Lightning Fast... start-up / deployment / configuration

Unparalleled Speed

Blazing fast start-up

Experience ground breaking startup speed!

In the highly optimized boot process of AS 7, services are started concurrently to eliminate unnecessary waits and to tap into the power of multi-core processors. Non-critical services are kept on ice until first use.

As a result, AS 7 offers a 10-fold reduction in startup time over previous versions and even gives Jetty and Tomcat a run for their money.

Quicker turnaround

Enjoy efficient development as a result of fast, concurrent deployment and the ability to edit static resources without redeployment in a flexible deployment structure.

Achieve an even tighter change-compile-test cycle by leveraging Arquillian to execute tests inside your target runtime environment, all from the convenience of your IDE or build tool.

Modular Design

No more jar hell!

Hierarchical classloaders are problematic, often causing failed deployments and quirky behavior. The time has come to say goodbye to the parent delegation model and find the path to modularity (i.e. sane classloading).

AS 7 does classloading right. It uses JBoss Modules to provide true application isolation, hiding server implementation classes from the application and only loading the classes your application needs. Modules, packaged as collections of classes, are peers that remain isolated unless explicitly defined as a dependency of another module. Visibility rules have sensible defaults, yet can be customized.

Load classes on demand

JBoss Modules can load only the classes you need and does so with extremely fast, O(1) resolution. In addition, classes can be loaded concurrently, making use of that multi-core processor once again.

OSGi? Elementary!

Thanks to the similarity in the design, OSGi support is available out of the box, built as a layer above JBoss Modules and the Module Service Container (MSC).

Exceptionally Lightweight

Memory diet

AS 7 takes an aggressive approach to memory management to minimize garbage collector pauses, only loads JAR files it needs and uses indexed metadata over full parses. All this keeps the memory footprint exceptionally small.

These optimizations enable AS 7 to run with stock JVM settings and on small devices. It also leaves more headroom for application data and supports higher scalability.

Server profiles can be used to trim unneeded capabilities, allowing you to make the server as lean as possible.

Modular services container

The capabilities of AS 7 are arranged into distinct services, organized and managed by the runtime. Each service can be started and stopped in isolation. Minimal dependencies between services, which are coordinated by the runtime, allow them to be controlled concurrently (yeah multi-core!).

The modular services container (MSC) architecture is a key reason why the boot and deployment processes are so fast.

Elegant Administration

Unified configuration & management

Rather than sending you on a wild goose chase to change a setting in the application server, configuration in AS 7 is centralized, simple and user-focused. The configuration file is based on a straightforward domain model that you can easily comprehend and no internal wiring is exposed.

The centralized configuration also unifies management. The same configuration file can be used for multiple servers in domain mode. In contrast, standalone mode controls a single instance, similar to how previous versions of JBoss AS were launched.

Command central

Consistent and powerful management is available out of the box, including a polished, user-friendly web console, Java and HTTP APIs and a command line tool (CLI). The web console provides a clear perspective into the server runtime, while the programmatic APIs can be leveraged by tools, scripts and geeks.

What makes the interfaces especially useful is that changes are persistent, so you have the option to avoid fiddling with the configuration file directly.

Strict Compliance

Java EE 6 Web Profile

AS 7 boasts an internal test suite based on Arquillian that achieves even more strict compliance to the portability expectations of our community of users.

As long as your application is Java EE compliant, you should expect it to run on AS 7. If you can't, it may be an indication that your application has portability problems.

OSGi Core 4.2

AS 7 is as much geared towards OSGi development as it is to Java EE.

Thanks to the modular design of the AS 7 core, adding OSGi compliance is a natural fit. Not only does AS 7 provide OSGi compliance, it also offers integration between the OSGi and Java EE component models.

Easily Testable

Arquillian

From the very start, AS 7 has been designed with testability in mind. The secret to that fidelity is Arquillian—a component model for integration tests that execute inside the real runtime environment.

By removing the clutter from your tests and handling deployment and test execution, Arquillian enables you to write tests for just about any use case your application encounters: real tests.

Thanks to the speed of AS 7, Arquillian tests run nearly as fast as unit tests.

Smarter development

Using Arquillian for development gives you an extremely fast change, compile, test cycle for any component model. This strategy allows you to take Test Driven Development (TDD) further than ever before.

AS 7 is a testament to how efficiently you can develop with Arquillian, and how robust your software will be.

First class, modern components

JBoss AS builds on many best of breed standalone OSS projects, many of which you're likely to recognize:

Quick Start

I did download AS 7 and install it...and saw the 2.5s startup. Really excited about this. I thought I was just barking in the wild complaining for so long about cycle time. It's great that you guys are doing it too because, while I was impressed with Glassfish's deploy times, they seem to be less driven these days (or driven in a different direction).

Rob Williams

"The speed improvement of JBoss 7 is just beyond awesome and no words could cover my excitement to this fantastic piece of engineering work."